


when the sun came up, you were looking at me

by defcontwo



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-02
Updated: 2014-11-02
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:49:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2556950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Think it’s too late to be a park ranger? Meet me a week from when I mailed this postcard. You know where to find me. -B</i> </p><p>Bucky takes a risk. It pays off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when the sun came up, you were looking at me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [biggrstaffbunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/gifts).



It took a risk; a leap of faith, a decision wholly his own, just like the haircut, just like the slim sci-fi paperback that he swiped from a library three states away, decision after decision adding themselves up and making a person, fully himself, wide-eyed and grim and determined as all hell, to bring them back together. 

Bucky buys the postcard at a gas station seven miles outside of Dallas, fills it out with a pen that he stole from a bank teller, snapped off with a flick of metal wrist and pays for the postage with quarters found on the sidewalk. 

He drops the postcard into the mailbox and walks away, a firm set to his shoulders because it’s too late now, he can’t take it back. 

(He could, if he wanted to -- he could turn right around and rip that blue metal box right open and fish the postcard out and tear it to pieces -- if he wanted to, he could. But he doesn’t want to. Another decision made). 

_Think it’s too late to be a park ranger? Meet me a week from when I mailed this postcard. You know where to find me. -B_

-

Here’s how it could go wrong: 

The postcard gets found by someone else -- SHIELD or HYDRA or the goddamn CIA, it could be found by one of the many people who want his head served up on a platter, the most convenient scapegoat hung out to dry. 

Or, this: 

Steve will know, now, the extent of it all -- will know about the bad people on both sides that he shot and killed to set the scene, to create chaos where there could’ve been peace but more than that, he will learn about the casualties, he will learn about the innocent people who got in the way and ended up as so much splattered blood on the pavement. Perhaps Steve will find that he no longer has it in him to look at Bucky the way he used to, with that wide-eyed easy sort of affection that they kept tucked close between them like the best kind of secret. 

Steve could show up and find that he cannot even look Bucky in the eyes anymore. He could show up with a team ready to take Bucky down and Bucky would go willingly because for all that he wants to live, wants to breathe and love and wake up every morning in a place where he knows he’s safe, none of that will mean a goddamn thing in this century if Steve can’t even stand the sight of him anymore. 

Or worse, this: 

Steve could not show up at all. 

-

(It doesn’t go wrong). 

-

Bucky reaches Lipan Point just as the sky starts to turn that deep, dusky purple that means soon the sun will cast a burnt orange glow across the sky. Standing there, both hands shoved in his pockets and looking as nervous as he was the day of his First Communion, is Steve. 

“You’re late,” Steve calls out. There’s a tremor in his voice, like he can’t believe this is happening, that this is real. Sharp eyes make out the stubble just coming in across his jaw, make out the twist around his lips that’s half a smile. Steve’s wearing a parka and a forest green flannel shirt underneath, looking for all the world like he’s been cut out of an advertisement and there is the familiar dissonance, Bucky blinks and the man he sees before him is so many pounds lighter and several inches shorter, so much rage and compassion and hope trapped inside a too-small frame but he blinks again, and there is Steve, reaching up a hand to push away at his hair impatiently and isn’t that a kicker, how he still has all the same goddamn ticks and habits that he always did. 

“You know me, I always gotta make an entrance,” Bucky says, toeing at a dip in the dirt and dust beneath his feet. He tries on a smile that he’s been working on, one that’s entirely his own, it’s not from before, it’s something new but there’s still a shadow of the old there, of the boy who used to show up late dressed to the nines with pomade in his hair. The moment stills and drags, lasting a beat or two too long and Bucky starts to shift, starts to wonder which of them will break the stalemate. “Are you gonna stand there and gape at me or are you gonna say something?” 

“Buck,” Steve starts, voice low and rough, like it’s been dragged over coals, “can I...would it be alright if I kissed you now?” 

Bucky lets out an impatient huff, grasping hold of Steve’s parka with both hands and reeling him in. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s lips but Bucky doesn’t dignify that with a reply, just kisses him, licking his way into Steve’s mouth, savoring the warmth of their bodies pressed close together in the chill morning air and swallowing a groan when Steve pulls away to nip at Bucky’s bottom lip. The mouthy little shit always was a biter, and that’s a comfort, isn’t it, that their entire world can crack and shift around them but Steve Rogers still kisses in exactly the same way, like it’s a fight, like he’s drowning in it, like he could throw his all into this kiss and then some and it still wouldn’t be enough. 

Later, much later, they will break apart for air. Later, Bucky will bump his forehead into Steve’s, call him a lug in a voice that displays the kind of naked fondness that he spent so many years trying to pretend wasn’t there. 

Later, Steve will place both hands on Bucky’s thighs and lift him, legs wrapping around Steve’s waist on reflex and Steve will bear the weight of both of them, spinning them around like the great big sap that he is until they’re both dizzy with it and Steve trips over a rock, sending them sprawling to the ground in a messy, aching pile and Bucky will call him an idiot. 

“That’ll teach me to try out a romantic gesture,” Steve will say, laughing, “what kind of asshole are you, can’t even appreciate it properly.” 

Later, but. 

Not just yet. 

-

“One down, fifty-eight to go,” Steve says. “Where do you want to go next?” 

They’re fit snug in the back of Steve’s pickup truck, Steve seated up against the window and Bucky, more or less in his lap, both legs bracketing Steve’s large frame and between the two of them, Bucky will always be the heavier one now but Steve’s not exactly complaining. He’s got a hand lain on the small of Bucky’s back, hasn’t moved it in almost an hour now, and maybe it’s a warm reassurance that they are both of them alive and present. 

“Lotsa national parks in California,” Bucky says, “How do you feel about the Redwoods?” 

Steve grimaces. “Camping, huh?” 

“Grin and bear it and I’ll let you sneak away to San Francisco, visit some fancy art galleries.” 

“You got yourself a deal, soldier.” 

\- 

They go camping in the Redwoods. 

Steve grins and bears it, and sneaks away to San Francisco the first chance he gets. 

They go to Hawaii and Texas and Utah and Alaska to boot, and Steve grows a beard that makes him look like a lumberjack but by the time they’ve reached the Rockies, he’s already sick of the beard and just impatient enough to let Bucky shave it off for him, Steve still and calm under Bucky’s steady hands, each scrape of the razor against flesh an ounce of trust that Bucky’s not yet sure he’s earned. 

Bucky wakes up every morning and lives; every single day is its own private fuck you and its own gift and its own benediction, all rolled into one. 

They don’t quite make it to all fifty-nine parks because halfway through Bucky gets an ache in his bones that calls out for dirty concrete and that familiar swoop of the Brooklyn Bridge but that’s okay -- it was, after all, his decision to make.


End file.
